


Chiz's

by t_fic (topaz), topaz, topaz119 (topaz)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Community: spn_flashfic, Curtain Fic, Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-26
Updated: 2007-07-26
Packaged: 2017-10-11 16:45:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/114497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/topaz/pseuds/t_fic, https://archiveofourown.org/users/topaz/pseuds/topaz, https://archiveofourown.org/users/topaz/pseuds/topaz119
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of all the places they could have ended up...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chiz's

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://community.livejournal.com/spnflashfic/profile)[**spnflashfic**](http://community.livejournal.com/spnflashfic/)'s _housing_ prompt. Vague spoilers through the end of Season 2.

Of all the places they could have ended up, Sam was pretty sure living over a neighborhood bar right outside the Pittsburgh city limits was on the bottom of the list, if it even made the list. Of course, Dean had never thought past "dead," but Sam'd had plans. He hadn't out-maneuvered a reaper on a leash and double-crossed a crossroads demon just to lose Dean to some other fucked-up bit of the supernatural. But then there was this rat's nest of poltergeists and by the time he and Dean took them all down, they were damn lucky they weren't permanently out of the game themselves.

Old Mr. Czyzmanski--Mr. Chiz, everyone called him--showed up at the hospital and insisted they stay in the cleared-out rooms, at least until Sam could get around without a cane and Dean didn't have to wear the dark glasses to keep the light from putting too much strain on the detached-and-reattached retina in his right eye. Mr. Chiz didn't trust doctors too much and he sure as hell didn't like cops and the FBI sniffing around his place. He played the deaf old coot like he was on Broadway or something, so nobody bothered them while they holed up over the bar and let their bodies heal. Nobody local ever wanted to go upstairs--they weren't stupid in this neighborhood tucked in behind Mt. Washington. Everybody knew the place had been haunted for years; it was no big deal that there were lights and noises up there now.

When Sam got to feeling a little better--and keeping Dean quiet and flat on his back started driving him bugfuck insane--he'd come downstairs and sit behind the bar, give Mr. Chiz a break. It wasn't complicated--there was Bud and Iron on tap and MGD in bottles. Vodka was about as exotic as hard liquor went and even then, it was mostly just shots. Occasionally, somebody's girlfriend would ask for a light beer and Mr. Chiz would mutter and mumble and make the sign to ward off the evil eye, but he'd fish around in the cooler and come up with a bottle or two that Sam thought might be older than he was. Once, a girl back for her high school reunion asked for an amaretto sour, but her friend quickly changed the order to a Bud before Mr. Chiz could start wheezing.

They never really decided to hang around for long, but one morning Sam woke up and realized Dean had been healthy for a month and the Impala was purring and neither he nor Dean were talking about moving on. Mr. Chiz pointed them in the direction of some problems--a couple of displaced baseball fans trapped in the new football stadium, the ghost of a trolley car driver suddenly lost without the tracks he'd kept to for decades--and week after week, it got a little easier to stay.

Dean bitched and moaned about the salt they used on the streets in the winter and absolutely refused to take the Impala out of the garage until spring, but almost everything they needed was in walking distance. Sam liked schlepping bags of groceries home--_home_\--before he took his turn behind the bar every night. It beat the bi-weekly PT appointments, for sure, and all the walking up and down hills made his therapist really happy.

Mr. Chiz died in his sleep right before Easter and Sam was sure the jig was up. Out of respect, they stayed for the funeral and opened the bar up that night for the wake. The regulars came in, like always, and they brought Father DeBias with them. On the rare occasions Mr. Chiz had crossed the threshold of St. Stanislaw's, he'd allowed as how the priest was a good man, for all that he wasn't Polak, but the last thing Sam expected was to hear that Mr. Chiz had dictated changes to his last will and testament to Father DeBias or that he'd insisted that the bar and the vacant lot behind it--currently used as a garden by random neighbors--go to Sam and Dean, no questions asked.

It took some doing, but Dean had been pulling together new identities for them and it wasn't that big of a deal to work in a distant relationship to a proud old man, staunch member of the local Polish Falcon hall and community business owner, especially when they had a Catholic priest vouching for them.

It bugged Dean that they couldn't repay what he saw as an obligation. Father D insisted it was nothing, but after a while, he confided there was something definitely not right with the old rectory. Seeing as how the Church wasn't big on their priests doing exorcisms, Dean smiled and assured him it was on the house. They took care of it one night after Sam closed the bar down--just a lonely lost housekeeper, worried about mold in the walls--and barely even broke a sweat. Dean started getting some pretty solid referrals after that.

The apartments over the bar were too small for them to squeeze into one--a delayed reaction to lives defined by a car and a hotel room--and the money wasn't good enough for major renovations, but both opened into the same narrow hall, so they kept the door at the top of the stairs locked and left the front doors open and ranged back and forth at will.

Sam's leg never quite healed up right--too many pins and not enough cartilage left in his knee--and it made Dean crazy-nervous if he came along on a job that wasn't routine, so he mostly researched and rode shotgun once in a while, just to keep his hand in. It was okay, though: he had the bar to take care of.

He ran the place pretty much the same way Mr. Chiz always had: a couple of pool tables in the side room and a half-dozen TVs tuned to the Pirates or the Steelers or the Penguins. Same cook, same menu (pizza and hoagies and a "salad" so covered with ham and salami and mozzarella, drowned in olive oil and red wine vinegar, even Dean would eat it) and families welcome (as long as the kids didn't block the TVs or hang out at the bar itself.) He didn't advertise the wireless network he put in, but he left the connection open and kept his old laptop around when he upgraded so the neighborhood kids, the ones whose families didn't have computers, could come in and do their homework even if the library wasn't open.

Bobby came by once, stood in the door nodding thoughtfully before going out to help Dean with a cave-in haunted mine a hundred miles farther south. After that, they stayed in touch mostly by phone. Ellen never did come--after the Roadhouse, she stayed away from bars, did all the drinking she deemed necessary from her own kitchen table. She always had good advice though; Sam called whenever he had a question.

Dean would help pull beers if Sam was swamped with a playoff game or something, but he pretty much had his hands full with the hunts Father D sent him out on and the rebuilds that started showing up more and more frequently. He couldn't really say no--the Impala was in better shape than she'd ever been in and when the hell else was he likely to get the chance to work on a '72 Skylark? Especially not one with the original soft-top, though he couldn't figure out why anybody'd want a convertible in winters like they were living through. Still, he'd spend hours under them, bugging Bobby to find the parts he needed, until they were as pretty as his baby. Well, not _as_ pretty, because no car would ever be that, but almost as good.

Neither of them got up much before noon most days--Sam hated to run out any of the regulars and Dean never said no to a chance to remind anyone who really owned the pool table. If Dean wasn't out on a hunt, he'd make breakfast--potatoes and bacon, with an onion and some peppers if he felt like it, and a half-dozen eggs scrambled in. If he really wanted to get Sam going about grease and salt, he'd throw on a handful of cheese right before he split the skillet between two plates.

Every so often, no more than once every couple of months, Sam would wake up early and stay in bed, just so he could watch Dean sprawled out warm and heavy on top of him. Dean's crow's feet had deepened and there was the occasional flash of silver at his temples, and when he'd open his eyes, Sam could see the jagged edge of green where the iris had been torn away. Dean would give him about ten seconds to look before he was smacking the back of Sam's head and getting the day going, but ten seconds was all Sam needed.


End file.
